Overview
How might we design tone sliders so people can trust and act on AI output?
When to use
- Ideal for content generation tools, writing assistants, and AI applications where visual controls for style and tone make customization more intuitive.
When to skip
- Domains with a single mandated tone (legal filings, medical notes).
- Code generation where tone sliders add confusion.
- Products that already encode tone in a fixed brand voice template.
Rules
Sliders with no live preview or example.
Too many axes (witty, warm, bold…) that fight each other.
Changing tone silently on regenerate without showing the setting.
Sliders that do nothing because the system prompt overrides them.
Evidence
| Product | Implementation |
|---|---|
| Jasper | Tone and style controls for marketing drafts. |
| Copy.ai | Voice presets and adjustable style inputs. |
| Bing Copilot | Conversation style choices affecting replies. |
| Writesonic | Tone settings for generated copy. |